With its vast budget, Disney has a lot riding on The Lone Ranger and so they’ve started the marketing effort early, releasing seven new images, along with comments from director Gore Verbinski, even though the film won’t arrive in UK cinemas until August 2013.
If nothing else, they suggest the film, starring Armie Hammer in the title role, will look good, and Johnny Depp as Tonto will spend a lot of time wearing a dead bird on his head. Take a look at the new images below, along with Verbinski’s comments, which come via USA Today.
“This is their bad-ass moment. Johnny and I have been able to create a really good dynamic between these two guys.”
“It’s a dysfunctional buddy movie. It’s two guys who start literally and figuratively handcuffed together who end up on the same mission with completely different worldviews. They sort of rub off on one another. But they have plenty of disagreements.”
“We made a big Western the old-fashioned way. You have to go there. This is right before the Lone Ranger and Tonto head out on their journey together. This is the first time they make a decision to work as a team.”
“[Depp is] is an odd-shaman, an outcast from his own tribe, who has created his own mystical world. [His crow headpiece is] his companion. It’s a stuffed bird that he feeds birdfeed.”
“All the traditional westerns are about choice and the individual. When progress comes it’s much more difficult to define the individual in that world. The train represents all of that. What do we give up in the name of progress?”
“This is during an attack sequence. The film has everything you can want, from Cavalry to Comanche. My respect for Westerns have gone way, way up. It’s hard and treacherous work. It’s hard to find people these days who can ride horses like that and jump onto trains.”
“It was a modern train clad in a steam engine just to get through all the work we had to do The train sequences are really entertaining.”
After the box office success of Moonrise Kingdom, which has earned $44 million worldwide from a $16 million budget, director Wes Anderson is going right back to work on his new project. The filmmaker has secured Johnny Depp to star in his new ensemble drama entitled The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is likely to Wes’ next movie, according to 
The delay to the shooting schedule of Lone Ranger caused by Disney putting on the brakes while they sorted out the ever-ballooning budget was inevitably going to cause some casting issues. Most of the actors have stayed onboard, but one who was forced to drop out is Dwight Yoakam.
Edgar Wright is still busy working on Ant Man and a couple weeks ago he released a pic suggesting he and Simon Pegg were finally reuniting for their planned new movie, but now Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and Shaun Of The Dead director Edgar Wright has added another movie to his plate, signing on to direct The Night Stalker for Disney and producer/star Johnny Depp.